comparative quiet until 1763, when Pontiac’s War broke out and they were completely surrounded by savages, later rescued by Colonel Bouquet. In 1811 first steamboat ever run on western waters was launched at Pittsburgh, the “New Orleans.” In 1839 first iron steamboat made in the United States, the “Valley Forge,” was built here.
The sister city, Allegheny, north side, was incorporated with Pittsburgh in 1907, combined population 588,343. An art commission was organized, 1911, for an improvement in public works of art in Pittsburgh, and to educate public sentiment for civic beautification; in 1915, E. H. Bennett, City Planning Architect of Chicago, was engaged to make a thorough economic and æsthetic analysis of “The Point,” at junction of the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers.
Close to the business center is Schenley Park, 440 acres, acquired by gift to the city in 1889, contains the Carnegie Institute; Carnegie Institute of Technology; Phipps Conservatory and Hall of Botany, given by Mr. Phipps in memory of his mother, with one of the most beautiful bronze statues in the world, “Mother and Child,” French sculptor; Hawkins Memorial, a bronze portrait figure, backed by wall of polished granite, base and floor marble, sculptor, Richard H. Couper, erected, 1904, in honor of Colonel Hawkins, Tenth Pennsylvania Regiment, in Spanish-American War; Panther Hollow, in which is an arch bridge, Beaver County sandstone, with panthers, sculptor, G. Moretti; and two other stone arch bridges built in 1892, architect, A. L. Schultz.
Near the Forbes Avenue entrance is the great central building of the Carnegie Institute, established by Andrew Carnegie with large annual fund, in perpetuity, for purchase of objects of art and scientific collections; built 1892-95, Italian Renaissance, sandstone, architects, Alden & Harlow, enlarged in 1904-07, contains Library, Music Hall, Department of Fine Arts, and the Natural History Museum, in which are large collections of ancient pottery, Chinese glass, and porcelains representing various eras; jades and crystals; valuable collections of coins and medals; illuminated manuscripts and early printed books, cut and uncut gems; one of the largest collections of carved ivory in the United States; and art metal work. The Library operates more than one hundred and seventy agencies for free distribution of literature, within “Greater Pittsburgh.”
On top of the building are four bronze groups, representing Science, Art, Literature, and Music. Bronze statues, Michelangelo and Galileo, are at entrance to Art Gallery. Entrance to Music Hall is through exquisitely designed bronze doors, wrought in relief, with bronze statues, Bach and Shakespeare, at either side. These bronzes were designed and modeled in the studio of J. Massey Rhind, and cast in Naples. Foyer to the Music Hall is considered the most beautiful portion of the Institute; here are twenty-four huge columns of Tinos marble, with gilded Corinthian capitals; and one of the finest organs in the world, on which the greatest organists obtainable give concerts of highly classical music, which are free, every Saturday night and Sunday afternoon. The great Archer, Queen Victoria’s Jubilee organist, held this position for many
GALLERY OF THE SCULPTURE HALL, CARNEGIE INSTITUTE, PITTSBURGH
years. The Hall of Sculpture, designed on lines of the Parthenon, is two stories high, around the first story is a Greek Doric colonnade; above this is a row of Ionic columns, all of the most flawless, milk-white, Pantelicon marble, dug out of the quarries from which the marble of the Parthenon itself was obtained; collections of sculpture represent, chronologically, its history from early Egyptian to the Renaissance of the sixteenth century.